The process of customer brand engagement in interactive contexts: Prerequisites, conceptual foundations, antecedents, and outcomes

Abstract

The purpose of this thesis is to develop a conceptual and theoretical understanding of customer brand engagement (CBE) that is useful for practitioners, particularly for service firms utilizing interactive platforms in building customer-brand relationships. Arguably, there is a need for more research to construct theories of the role of CBE in brand relationships and to test theories of antecedents and outcomes of CBE. This thesis provides an overview of the CBE and the consumer/customer engagement (CE) literature, and four articles applying different theoretical perspectives that together provide a comprehensive understanding of CBE in interactive contexts. CBE is investigated in relation to customers as the engagement subjects, and brands (i.e., brand relationships, brand activities) as the engagement objects.